Today: Not So Black-and-White. Gas Attacker.

Hello. I'm Davan Maharaj, the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines you shouldn't miss today.

TOP STORIES

Not So Black-and-White

The mayor is black. So are the school superintendent, the police chief and most of his officers. That casts the violence in Baltimore in a different light from, say, Ferguson, Mo., where white leaders have run a mostly black town. "It's not about race" is an oft-heard phrase in the streets of West Baltimore. Read what many think it's really about.

California emits a tiny fraction of the world's greenhouse gases, but Gov. Jerry Brown seems intent on making it a major player in the fight against global warming. He ordered tough new goals on slashing the state's emissions by 2030. They align California's standards with those of the European Union. Brown hopes to get the attention of the rest of the country -- and China.

Good Morning, Pendleton

Forty years ago today, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese and the Vietnam War was over. Thousands of Vietnamese who fled to a tent city that sprang up overnight at Camp Pendleton had lost not only a war, but a country. Times reporter Anh Do spent her first days in America at Pendleton. Decades later, she finds two women who also came there, scared and confused, as children. Here's her moving story.

A Rumble at the Music Center

It’s unusual for arts institutions to break into open warfare with their fundraising arms, but that seems to be what’s happening at the Music Center -- home of Disney Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre. Carla Sands, president of the center’s Blue Ribbon fundraising auxiliary, says the paid administrators botched the Music Center’s 50th anniversary gala Dec. 6 -- missing a chance to reel in big corporate donations and putting on an unspectacular show to boot. Music Center officials concede there were “challenges” and say they’ve had to trim staff because of fundraising shortfalls. Read more here.

CALIFORNIA

-- Gov. Jerry Brown plans to substantially trim the amount of fish and wildlife habitat to be restored in a project to replumb the heart of California's water system.

For 23 years, a vacant lot at Vermont and Manchester in South L.A. has festered like an open wound. It was at the center of rioting that rocked the city, the site of the ABC Swat Meet that was among the first of many businesses to burn. Years of efforts to transform it have come to naught. Now -- just maybe -- a new project is taking hold that could help erase old wounds.